


when the cause and cure is you

by untilourapathy (gwendolen_lotte)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Domesticity, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Draco Malfoy, Pining, a hint of metafiction, overworked extended metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 23:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14199528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendolen_lotte/pseuds/untilourapathy
Summary: Potter is his past tense. Harry is his future.





	when the cause and cure is you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thealmostrhetoricalquestion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/gifts).



> For the absolute babe Chelsea xx Thank you for putting up with me at all odd hours and being completely amazing!! I hope you enjoy <3 Title is from Weak by SWV.

Potter is the sticky sheen of the summer sun, boiling them all slowly, slowly slowly in his brilliance.

It hurts to look at him. Draco would know.

*

They’re friends now, because of _course_ they are. They meet again at Portobello, of all places. Potter is looking for a vinyl for his ex-girlfriend, and Draco is looking for a life. It works, somehow.

Somehow, over five too many recycled paper cups of Tetley, birds shitting on the two of them angrily - almost as if they don’t deserve their own happiness. 

They do. They go round to somewhat interesting places together - to Kew, down to Truro and Penzance by the sea, up to Cumbria to spy on the stars like it’s the Astronomy Tower all over again. They bond over Crup-bitten books and laughable duels, open secrets shared by the shrieking kettle, over the fact that neither of them know what they’re doing at the edge of Zone Two, running away from the world as they know it for silence, noise, and silence.

They’re friends, now.

Potter is a mess, all six letters of him. He’s seven books complex and thousands of pages worth of dire, and in general, quite confused. He is two halves of one dream, broken. 

Potter is a mess, and Draco is in love.

*

Every Tuesday, Potter comes round to steal the biscuits he’s taught Draco to buy from the local, bringing round with him Neville’s latest batch of flowers. They were lilies, once. Draco had sat with him on the kitchen island, just in his shirt and socks, pretending not to see Potter pretending not to cry. 

It’s a good friendship, one borne of worn-out songs and old fights, too weathered to last. A quiet one, one that lasts through the commercial breaks of _Strictly_ and past the arguments, paltry and petty. And through the big ones too: Draco’s father, Draco’s words - the ones that fly out of his mouth, instictually - and how much they hate each other, when they don’t.

So it shouldn’t have been a surprise to Draco, really, when he did catch feelings.

When he does catch feelings, it’s two o’ clock. Draco has a Hobnob crumbling in hand, fingers tacky with melted chocolate, and he’s staring at Potter. He folds his feelings into his teacup, damp chocolate around the handle, and leaves it on the kitchen island to be forgotten. 

Not today, he thinks. Not today. 

Draco looks forward to Tuesdays. 

*

Sometimes, Draco thinks Potter wants him too. When he looks at Draco like he’s more than his world, when he grins and his eyes go a bit damp from hayfever. Potter’s sort of attractive, Draco’ll give him that, but he’s the prettiest when he’s laughing, arms dangling by his soft stomach as he runs a hand through his too-long hair. 

But Potter looks at him, sometimes, like he does Potter. Potter looks at him with the same intensity that Draco does him, watching Draco watch Potter.

It’s exhausting, but there’s something in the twist of Potter’s knobbly hands as he slumps over the kitchen island like Draco’s space is _his_ , too, something in the way he wears his socks - odd, one covered in Snitches and the other one of Draco’s, _DLM_ \- that makes Draco stay. He’s a fool to stay, he knows.

But they all are. Fools, running around like they have somewhere to be, something to do, something to say.

*

They’re a little family, the lot of them. Potter, Draco, Neville, Dean - rejects and leftovers from the war, but precious to each other.

It’s nice, sometimes - when Dean comes over to Draco’s to ‘have a chat’ but really to steal his pasta sauce, or when Pansy comes to sit in Draco’s lap, curled small as she regales him the latest tale from the domestic chaos that is her and Granger. Draco throws little parties in his garden as Neville strings hibiscus and other weather-inappropriate flowers over his terrace, with Harry laughing on his back as Teddy crawls over him. Blaise is egging him on as he always does, and Granger leaves kisses all down Pansy’s collarbone and shoulders as Ron downs Pimm’s straight from the jug. Draco’s house is only little, and a little crooked, but it’s his and he loves it. The walls are an off-yellow that he really should repaint, only that him and Harry always get distracted on their weekends - dancing to bad music from their parents’ time, Begonia Bagshot or whomever. He tries to fill it with as much love as he can, but he finds that he doesn't need to.

Because Harry always brings that love with him, glued to him like the shadow is to his bones. Draco sees this in his kind eyes, always too trusting, and sees himself falling in the reflection of Harry's glasses. Fuck, he thinks. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

And so other times, it’s downright awful - because Draco knows he has loved Potter like the blood in his bones for as long as the sun has been rising, and it hurts.

Although he has become excellent at pretending it doesn’t.

*

They do try, once. Draco is drinking grigio with a straw and Potter is on his second slice of bacon and egg pie. Draco can’t have any, not after that one time he vommed after bulk-buying Flying Saucers, drunk on the power of Tesco’s. Turns out sherbet doesn’t go well with pie, after all. They’ve been friends for far too long and Potter places his hand on Draco’s hip as he says this, just right over the fleshy part, right under the bone. 

Draco closes his eyes and prays. He recites all ten of the potions that are bubbling in the other room and adds an extra for luck. He reminds himself of all the errands he needs to do before Teddy comes over later, and thinks of Potter always overheating next to him, and reaches for his wand to cast a Cooling Charm.

But before he can, Potter turns to kiss him as Len grants his ten and it’s quite awful, really. Potter tastes like stale pie and Draco tastes like alcoholism, and Draco spends the entire time pretending not to care.

It’s the worst kiss of his life. He tells himself he doesn’t care.

He _doesn’t_.

*

‘Of course I’m not in love with you,’ Draco says, eyes scrunched on a Monday afternoon. Potter’s skived off work for no real reason, as he’s wont to do, and Draco’s bored of his potions and puzzles. Potter seems to think that _this_ is the perfect opportunity to ask him why the kiss didn’t work out, and _somehow_ , Potter has come up with this. They’re in the kitchen again, squeezed right by the doorway. Entrances and exits, he thinks. Fuck.

The conversation’s a bad dream, he prays. It’ll all be fine in the morning. Draco imagines his mother’s surprisingly warm hand on his sweaty forehead, him at five, him at sixteen. He wills himself out.

‘No?’ Potter asks, concerned, not letting Draco pretend. He’s still in those damn slippers that he shuffles around in everyday, the only sound more annoying than his snores from the guest room, from the sofa, from the foot of Draco's bed. Draco’s fingers twitch towards his wand as he backs into the living room, mouth pinched.

‘Fuck off,’ Draco says, genial as he can be. ‘I’m not in love with you. Please stop asking.’

But Potter’s the off-green sea, and Draco is the moon. Waiting, waiting,

waiting. 

*

Potter’s emotions are a bit shredded after the war. Draco doesn’t mind, he now knows how best to soothe him. And keeping an eye out on someone else is a lot easier than keeping an eye out on yourself. That, he knows. 

They’re standing in the kitchen when Potter mentions, offhand, how Draco doesn’t love himself enough to let him with be anyone. Draco tastes blood at that, looking at Potter as he stands in the kitchen corner. Because the kitchen is their space, after all. Where they create things, together. Bad concoctions of soy sauce and crème brûlée, stupid potions that make Potter’s mouth bleed and Draco’s feet burn, clever potions eventually - to help Potter sleep, help Potter wake, help Potter go back outside again. 

But at the end of the day, it’s the kitchen. Not theirs. 

*

When Draco comes back from the shops one day, finally thinking he might be moving on, Potter’s sitting on a chair. This is reason enough to pause, as they both like to sit on the island, cool and reassuring in the maddening ocean of the world around them. 

Draco’s heart feels weightless in his chest, like it would float out of his ribcage if given the chance. That’s when he knows he’s not going to move on. Not without giving it a try. He opens his mouth, but Potter’s beaten him to it. Potter, who’s stupidly sitting in a chair eating Hobnobs, the crumbs scattered across the kitchen in a path he can trace. Some work worry, Draco thinks. Or maybe there’s been a row with Ron, he doesn’t know. There are many reasons Harry Potter paces. Or, he thinks, it simply could have been Parvati, finally managing to steal Potter’s favourite jumper.

‘We should talk,’ Potter says. He has a damp dishrag in one hand and his wand in the other, tapping it in an off-staccato on his leg. 

‘Well _that’s_ not ominous or anything,’ Draco grumps, pretending to be alright as he kicks his shoes off to the left. Always to the left, since he was a child. 

He clings to the two facts he knows. For whenever he wakes from his moth-eaten sleep, always seeking out for a presence that isn’t there, he is always certain of two things. One, that he loves Potter, and two, that he doesn’t deserve him. It’s a step up from his previous one and only certainty. 

These are the facts that accompany him as he makes his way over to Potter in his chair, not ready for what Potter could ask. Because his facts are his quiet ritual, one for him to keep. For there’s so little that’s his own, these days. 

Even Potter has wormed his way into his house, his heart, his blood. 

‘What,’ Draco demands, moving to stand in front of Potter and his chair.

‘We should try again,’ Potter says, worming his too-hot hands around Draco’s wrist, covered in little nicks from potions and cooking and exploring the outdoors, for once. Snatching his wrist back up, he turns to glare at him. 

‘Try _what_ , Potter.’

‘Harry.’

‘That’s what you want me to try? _Harry_?’

‘Stop pretending to be dense,' Potter - Harry says, smiling. 'We should try again.'

‘No,’ Draco says. With some force, it seems, judging by Harry’s expression - ruined, resigned, eyes dull and cheeks puffed. 

Because Draco’s love is the dull ripples in a pond full of algae, not pure nor precious, but there. But this sort love carried its own sting - 

Draco thought he should stop reading so much bad poetry.

No, because he’s read about love in books and seen the fools in Puddifoot’s. He’s never thought that’d be be him one day, never thought that love was _for_ him. Because there's too much to lose, and he wouldn't lose his friendship for the world. Because Draco knows he’ll only ever be transient for Harry - Draco's just watercolour, that which washes off.

He’s just collateral damage in the spinning world that is Harry Potter, and he’s alright with that - better to be scalded by the sun than never see the light of day, after all. 

And so when Draco wakes the next day, it’s as he does everyday. It’s just him, the sea and the moon. 

*

Harry doesn’t come back for a while. His absence is so great that Draco can hear it in the clock, in the beats of silence in between each tick. _Stay_ , he hears himself plead, to a Harry that is no longer there. Still real, even if it’s in his head. Stay, he thinks, so his home may become itself again. So that the kitchen could become theirs.

When Harry does return, Draco doesn’t say any of this. Instead, he says this.

‘We’re together,’ Draco realises. It’s an out of the blue comment on a sad blue Tuesday, the lips of the curtains dark. He thinks of the long nights spent reading Quidditch mags, of Harry teaching him to cook. Draco remembers long walks on the lonely concrete road to the Muggle fire station and back, the late mornings where Harry would climb into his bed to nap over his duvet, still warm from where Draco had just woken.

‘’Course,’ Harry says, like it didn’t cause Draco to bite down on the inside of his cheek and pinch at the skin by his wrist. ‘We’re together, yeah Draco?’

Draco wrenches his hand of Harry’s and goes to cry in the loo. 

Just for a little bit - because he’s ridiculously in love, and Harry is too, and it fucking hurts.

*

When they do get together, officially and properly, the world doesn’t end.

Draco still pours Harry’s tea just how he likes it - too much milk and not enough sugar, in Draco’s absolutely correct opinion, and Harry still steals his socks. They still meet up with all of their new-found family and sip bad hot chocolates in the winter sun, bemoaning the cold. They occupy very little space, but what they do have they treasure.

He thinks of every romance to be have been put to paper, and all the forgotten ones too. The damned, the failed, the miserable. But it’s alright, he knows. Because he’s in love, and if even that isn’t enough?

 _They’re_ in love.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed, sorry for any mistakes! Thank you @callingdrarry for prereading xx Also written in about an hour or two, so apologies if anything sounds off... You can find me on Tumblr at @untilourapathy. Come say hi!


End file.
